Friday Fun Fact #14

Good morning and happy Friday to you! It always amazes me how quickly the week goes by when I’m on vacation, but yet when I’m at work, it seems to drag along. I hope you have had a good week. Do you have plans for the weekend? Saturday I will be running my first 5k. I’ve been looking forward to this for a couple of weeks now. I’ve trained a bit in the gym on a treadmill and this week ran outside three days. Ha! Do you think that’s enough? I am not new to running, but I’ve been pushing myself more than I would if I were just running for fun. I hate to say that I’m getting to be a timer junkie… trying to make each run faster. There are so many things to take into account — traffic and weather are two things that seem to add or shave off just seconds. I don’t even have a good timer; I’m using my pedometer so it’s only as accurate as I can make it by remembering to check the time when I start out.

Friday Fun Fact:

I’m not sure this week’s Fun Fact is a fact, but rather my own personal experience with working out. I’ll tell you right off, the bottom line for me is SWITCH IT UP! Besides the proven fact that your muscles have memory and get used to doing the same workout over and over and eventually you don’t reap much benefit, it is b-o-r-i-n-g!

So I told you on Monday that I went with my Handsome Healthy Hubby to his MixFit workout. Well, I must be a glutton for punishment because I went back Wednesday and today for more! I liked it so much that I signed up for my own sessions a couple times a week. Why did I do this you ask? Though I am a person of routine, I get bored easily. I like predictability in my life and don’t appreciate change too much, but when it comes to working out (or my hair) don’t make it too monotonous. I can handle the M / W / F schedule of aerobics and weight training and T / TH doing High Intensity Interval Training. I like that… for a bit. So the good thing about working out with atorture master personal trainer is you never know what you’re gonna get. Some days you might be doing full body, other days (like today) we did mostly core and upper body. We wanted to save my legs for the run tomorrow. Thanks for that! In the three days I worked out with Frank, I hardly repeated any exercises. There was running on the giant tire, pushing a weighted sled (H³’s favorite), punching on heavy bags, a few weight exercises, slamming a weighted ball, and squats on the giant tire. I think the giant tire is going to be my friend — she says sarcastically. See, when you’re vertically challenged, some things are just more difficult than others. And I happily accept that.

A little about Frank & Ana:

Handsome Healthy Hubby met Frank when he wanted to do a couple of personal training sessions at the local big-chain gym. For them, it was love at first sight, so to speak. They have many things in common, including a twisted sense of humor and a no-nonsense attitude. H³ was happy to be trained by someone knowledgeable in not only weight training but also therapeutic exercise. He wasn’t assigned a 20-something giant-muscle guru who yelled like a drill sergeant and trained you like you were 23. Nope, Frank is a seasoned, soft-spoken mixed martial arts instructor who gently and slowly kills you in the gym. H³ calls him a bad ass, and quite frankly he sorta scares me. He is married to Ana who is also a personal trainer. She’s one tough cookie, too, but is a little softer than Frank. The two of them recently opened their own personal training gym nearby and everybody who trains there is just one big family. I like the feel of it. Frank and Ana are very good at what they do and it’s tough to get time with them, so I was happy to hear that a 5:30 a.m. slot just opened up. I’m looking forward to my new early morning routine. I’ll be officially starting in September.

Here’s a picture of Frank and me after my workout today:

Today’s Recipe:

Yesterday I tried a baked sweet potato oatmeal. I got the idea from a blog post I saw while scanning the interwebs looking for something else. And I’m sorry I can’t remember where I saw it. I didn’t even write down the recipe, so I sorta made up my own as I went. I had another bowl today after my workout. It’s packed with lots of vitamins and nutrients, protein and Omega 3s. I added a little bit of almond milk after I heated it this morning. It does tend to thicken up on the second day. It would also be good drizzled with a little bit of maple syrup, but I’m trying to leave the sweeteners out of things. Click on the picture to be taken to the recipe.

Wrap-Up:

Well, that’s all for today. I hope your weekend is awesome and filled with joyful activities. I will be back here on Monday with some mumblings for sure.
If you’re interested, we’re starting up a new Healthy Vegan Challenge over on Facebook. You can join here. It is a closed group, so just request to join and we’ll approve you!